THE Devon village of Northlew has more reason to remember the start of the First World War 100 years ago than most: proportionately, it lost the highest number of enlisted men in the UK.

Villagers consulted experts who told them to freeze their poppy seeds to simulate a harsh winter [PH]

So last year more than 50 villagers decided to do something really special as a tribute to their forebears, by planting a 20-mile poppy avenue of remembrance all the way from Okehampton to Thornbury.

One direction points in an exact line to Flanders and the other is the way the new recruits would have walked to go to the railway station and off to war – many never to return home again.

The Northlew villagers are hoping for an early spring so the poppies flower in late June to coincide with plans to turn their historic square into a battlefield using 3D projection, on June 28, with a First World War bi-plane flyover.

They are also collecting Great War uniforms, photographs and Trench artwork to put on show in a museum and have asked permission to create a Corner of a Foreign Field using French grass seed, in recognition of the Rupert Brooke poem The Soldier.

Fifty kilos of seeds for the poppy avenue were donated by Sutton Seeds, which has its head quarters in Devon, and now gardeners have the chance to sow their own poppy memorials and at the same time raise money to build a new community shop called Memorial Stores in Northlew, which will cost more than £140,000.

Sutton’s WW1 Northlew Poppy seeds went on sail this month for £1.99 and £1 from every packet sold will go to the Northlew fund.

The villagers sowed thousands of poppy seeds after preparing a weed-free furrow along grass verges to create the poppy avenue last autumn, mixing them with sand to aid drainage and an even distribution.

More will be sown this spring as a back up in case the original seeds have been washed away by this winter’s rain, and there is still plenty of time for the rest of us to sow poppy seeds for summer flowering too.

In Northlew the villagers consulted experts who told them to freeze their poppy seeds to simulate a harsh winter – which aids germination – before sowing them.

You can sow poppy seeds from March if your soil is not too wet [PH]

The Northlew villagers are hoping for an early spring so the poppies flower in late June to coincide with plans to turn their historic square into a battlefield

One Canadian advisor’s top tip was to freeze them in ice cube trays then throw them onto the soil so they have their own water source.

The villagers are planning to use a large water carrier in a van and fill it with river water to irrigate the verges if it’s a really dry spring. But mostly they are planning to leave everything to nature.

If you want to plant your own remembrance poppies it is best to sow them on a well-drained, sunny site. Like other wild flowers they don’t like a rich soil, so avoid adding compost to the spot where you are going to sow the seeds.

You need to dig the soil a little before sowing, because they won’t grow in compacted soil, and mix them with sharp sand so that they are more evenly spread.

Then rake over only a little soil, because they need plenty of light to germinate.

You can sow poppy seeds from March if your soil is not too wet, and continue sowing them right up to May, so you get a succession of flowers over the summer.

The Royal British Legion is running The 2014 Real Poppy Campaign to encourage more people to plant poppies in their gardens or along the roadsides (but away from farmers’ fields).

You can buy seeds from its website www.realpoppy.co.uk at £2.99 for 1,000 seeds with free package and postage.

For more information about Northlew’s First World War event visit its Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/northlewpoppy, and to find out more about Suttons’ WW1 Northlew Poppy visit www.suttons.co.uk, where you can buy the fund-raising seeds online.